


Reconciliation

by Yods



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Amnesia, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yods/pseuds/Yods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy wakes up after an accident with no memory of the last couple of months.  A lot has changed in the meantime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awakening

#  Awakening

The room is much too bright when Foggy wakes up. It doesn’t help much with his splitting headache either. In fact his whole body aches and he’s exhausted. It’s almost too much trouble to lift his arm to shield his eyes from the sun. Everything feels very wrong. This wrongness consolidates in the discovery that he’s lying in a hospital bed. Foggy isn’t quite awake enough to be alarmed by this. He’s fuzzily pleased to see that there’s a reasonable collection of flowers around the room, as well as a balloon bobbing from the bed’s rails. There’s no-one else in the room, though, which is disappointing. 

At this point a nurse bustles into the room, stopping short when she sees him. “Good morning, Mr Nelson. Good to see that you’re awake.” She smiles, although she looks about as tired as he feels. “I’ll just call the doctor for you, shall I?” She disappears immediately.  
For some reason this leaves him feeling more alarmed than just waking alone in the hospital had. Foggy fiddles vaguely with the balloon, smiling when he finds a note from Karen.

It doesn’t take long before a plump, severe looking woman enters the room. “Good morning Mr Nelson.” She doesn’t attempt to smile. “How do you feel?”

Foggy can’t quite keep the whining tone out of his voice. “I’m tired and my head hurts”.

“That’s to be expected. You were hit by a car and you’ve been here a couple of days. How much do you remember?” Her voice is annoyingly crisp.

“…None of it? I was hit by a car? I guess that explains why everything hurts.” Foggy tries to sit up but thinks the better of it as his back protests.

“Some memory loss is normal after a head injury. The rest is just some mild bruising – nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious my ass.” Foggy again attempted and failed to sit up.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. She was quite good at it. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions, Mr Nelson.”

Foggy considered telling her to call him by his name but decided he couldn’t take another raised eyebrow. “Is this the part where you ask me my name and the current president? I’m really good at tests.”  
She gave the distinct impression of just having managed to prevent herself from rolling her eyes.  
Turns out Foggy correctly predicted the first two questions. Then: “Where do you work?”

“Nelson and Murdock.” Foggy smiled proudly. The doctor frowned back at him.

“What’s the date, Mr Nelson?”

For some reason this stumped him. “…I’m not sure. I’ve been here a couple of days so… Some time late summer?” He is aware that this wasn’t as specific as specific as it should have been. 

Her frown deepened. Foggy looked out the window, the late morning sun low on the horizon.  
“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” Now it was actually getting alarming.

“Quite. What year is it, Mr Nelson?”

“What year? Jesus, how long was I out?”

“Just three days. What year is it?”

“2015?” This really shouldn’t be sounding like a question. Foggy was pretty sure that not knowing what year it was was a _very_ bad sign. 

The doctor nodded to herself. “I’m going to get some of your friends to come talk to you. Find out how much you’re really missing. Maybe that will set you at ease.” She turned around to walk out. Wonderful bedside manner.  
She paused at the door. “In the meantime, try to get some sleep.”

Yeah right, that was going to happen.  
But apparently the confused thoughts were no match for the exhaustion that this conversation had caused. Foggy passed out with the vague panic still running through his head.

 

When he woke up, only moments (hours? days? later) Marci was sitting in the chair in the corner of the room typing on her phone.  
She looked up from her phone when he managed to sit up. Hey, success.

“How do you feel?” she asked with a disgusted expression.

He grinned at her despite himself. “Better” It was true. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Well aren’t you charming. Who exactly were you expecting then?” Marci glared. “Don’t answer that.”  
This left Foggy with a lot of vague alarm and unanswered questions he wasn’t willing to put into words.

Marci went back to her phone. “Have you looked at your flowers?”  
He feels like arguing, but if he does Marci might make more vaguely ominous statements and he can’t deal with that at the moment. So a game of clue instead. There are bouquets from his extended family, a card from Brett (presumably Bess made him bring it) and…

“From your colleagues at Martin Zizek Attorneys?” So this was what Marci was avoiding.

“You work there now. We both do.”

“What happened to Landman and Zack?” That was definitely the safer question.

“They came into sudden legal problems. Long story.”  
Foggy didn’t say anything. Didn’t dare ask what he was thinking.  
Marci sighed and rolled her eyes. “Are you honestly _that_ surprised that Nelson and Murdock didn’t make it?”  
Still not saying anything. But yes Matt, paying clients would be good now and then right? Totally willing to give past Matt an eye roll here.

Foggy cleared his throat nervously. “So does Matt work at Zizek too?”

“No.” There’s a lot of disdain there. As though the very thought was ridiculous.

The unnamed something that Foggy was afraid of started to solidify. “What, why?”

“Because you two don’t talk. And when your paths happen to cross it’s all stony, awkward silence and frankly it’s embarrassing to be around.”  
Foggy didn’t know what to say to that. Of course it had occurred to him when they started the firm it might go under – starting any business was risky. But that _Nelson and Murdock_ might not make it was never something that would have occurred to him as a possibility.

“Great, now you look like someone killed your puppy and cancelled Christmas all at once. I’m not going through the whining because you’ve lost your boyfriend all over again. I’m out.” Marci picked up her bag to leave. “The doctor said you’d be discharged today. You’re fine. Try coming into the office tomorrow – you’re useless as long as you don’t remember your cases, but maybe someone or something will jog your memory.”  
Ah, Marci. Always so comforting.

“I don’t even know where it is.”  
“You have business cards. And Google. Figure it out.”

And with that he was alone again. Alone and missing a few months. And a best friend. And who knows what else. Maybe the doctors were wrong about him being fine, because it really felt like he couldn’t breathe.


	2. At the office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy catches up with recent events before coming to a decision.

The next morning the last thing Foggy felt like doing was going to some office. His whole body still felt like a giant bruise and the bathroom mirror confirmed this feeling.  
But not going to the office meant staying at home, which was even worse. Everything was just a little bit off. His hair was shorter than it had been in years. The contents of the kitchen cabinets seem to have been moved around. There was a unfamiliar new suit in the closet that looked more expensive than anything else he owned. He’d apparently started using different shampoo, and now he didn’t even _smell_ like himself. There had been a stranger living in his apartment for the last couple of months and now it didn’t feel like home anymore.  
At least at the office there would be distractions. Here there was the rickety coffee table they’d had in college. _He wasn’t friends with Matt anymore._ The couch which he’d picked because it matched the rest of the living room (do you know how difficult it is to find this shade of green?) and Matt complained that it was scratchy and uncomfortable. On his bookshelf was a book on braille from his aborted attempt to learn it. It was much more difficult than he’d thought. _He wasn’t friends with Matt anymore._ He felt hollowed out an slightly unreal.  
  
So to the office it was. The place turned out to be quite nice. Not all glass and steel like Landman and Zack, but generally pleasant. Foggy stood around in the lobby for a while, pretending to study the pot plants. It hadn’t occurred to him that he wouldn’t know where his office was and it felt foolish to ask. The receptionist kept giving him worried looks.  
“Hey, Franklin.” A hand clasped at his shoulder. Foggy nearly jumped out of his skin and spun round. A tall, very blond man of about his own age grinned at him. Foggy gaped at him (Franklin?) for a moment before getting a grip on himself.  
“Hi, umm…” They blinked at one another.  
“Oh yes, I heard you had a … memory …thing.? I’m Doug, we’re neighbours. Come one.”  
Foggy trailed after him, managing to keep up with some small talk. Doug seem friendly, and kept giving him vaguely concerned glances.  
People greeted them on the way up. There was colourful modern artwork on the walls on regular intervals. Everything about the place seemed crisp and clean. It was all nice and pleasant and Foggy hated it.  
  
They stopped at two offices directly across from each other. Foggy spotted his plastic dinosaurs in the one to the left.  
“Well here we are.” Doug looked at him expectantly.  
Foggy cast around for a joke. “Please tell me I don’t use the phone when I want to ask you something.” Lame.  
Doug grinned again. He did so easily. “You’d be more likely to throw it at me.”  
“Throw?”  
“Yeah, you throw stuff - hit me in the head with a packet of post-its once.”  
“Shit, I’m sorry.”  
He laughed this time. “That’s what you said then too.”  
“I guess I was just over-excited at finally working with someone I can play catch with.”  
“What do you mean?”  
Foggy hesitated – he’d never even mentioned Matt? “My partner at the place I used to work is blind.”  
Doug nodded slightly to himself, doubtlessly thinking that this would make playing catch difficult.  
“What happened there?”  
Good question, wish he knew. “Guess he got tired of at looking at my face all day long.”  
Doug gave an awkward half-laugh and excused himself to his office. Apparently a bad audience for a blind joke. Maybe you need to earn that.  
  
  
After having to call IT support to get his password reset Foggy spend the rest of the morning going through files and e-mails trying to find something that seemed familiar. Apart from the official mail there were friendly, chatty messages; some kind of in-joke about monster trucks… he had friends here and he knew nothing about them.  
It was all getting way too depressing. Foggy was relieved when Marci showed up to take him to lunch. To his surprise Doug joined them as well.  
  
Apparently the point of lunch was to get him updated on what was going on in the world.  
“So,” Marci said, “there’s war in the Middle East…”  
“Pretty sure that’s not news.”  
“Don’t interrupt, Foggybear.”  
“The Mets lost the World Series” interrupted Doug.  
“Sure they did.” Foggy found he didn’t care. Marci glared at Doug before retaking the conversation.  
“Remember Fisk?”  
“Sure?”  
“Well he’s in jail,” she said sounding bizarrely proud, “ and turns out the guy in the mask isn’t a complete psycho.”  
“Good for him.” Foggy scoffed, thinking of the still clearly visible scar from the explosion.  
It continued like this for a while but Foggy wasn’t really listening. Anything really important will become clear all on its own. Besides, he was probably going to start remembering soon (right?) so this is all unnecessary. Right?  
“..and the Supreme Court ruled in favour of gay marriage.” finished Marci.  
Foggy smiled at this. “Good.”  
Doug frowned slightly and an uncomfortable silence fell. Foggy picked at his lunch.  
“So… where does Matt work now?” he asked tentatively.  
Marci rolled her eyes. “Are you really still on that?”  
“What do you mean still? Yes, I’m still on that.” Foggy almost snapped.  
Marci sighed, put upon. “I imagine he still works where he used to.”  
He blinked at her in confusion. “But you said Nelson  & Murdock went under.”  
“Well there’s no Nelson there anymore so…”  
  
This was hard to process. They didn’t fall out because the business went under, he just left. Or Matt kicked him out. Both were hard to imagine. Maybe they did argue about financials – enough divorces are started that way.  
Marci stared at him. “O my God your face! This is just pathetic. If you’re so keen on knowing what’s going on with Matt why don’t you go talk to _him_.”  
She threw down her napkin and stalked off.  
“Why do you actually hang out with her.” Doug watched Marci’s retreating form “Aside from the obvious.”  
Foggy bristled slightly at this “Marci’s good once you get to know her.”  
Doug focussed his attention on his food and refrained from replying to this, saving Foggy from having to further defend Marci.  
She was right though. If he wanted to know what had happened he needed to go talk to Matt. And that was just what he was going to do. Why hadn’t he simply done that in the first place?


	3. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy goes to talk to Matt. It doesn't really turn out that way.

Foggy stood at the door, waiting to go in. He’d procrastinated all morning after calling Marci to tell her he wasn’t going to work – work was pointless anyway. All the way over he’s had his heart in his throat. It felt like he was on his way to the doctor to get bad news.  


And now he was at the door. The handmade sign that he’s put up there was gone. In its place was a sign in Karen loopy handwriting: **Matthew Murdock – Attorney at Law.** He kept staring at the sign, fighting the stupid urge to burst into tears. He was an adult, damnit. He wasn’t going to cry over a lonely cardboard sign.  


Inside it had been quiet at first, but then he heard someone moving around. He heard Matt and Karen talking, too softly to make out what they were saying. A laugh in Matt’s voice.  
Foggy’s chest tightened. It sounded like home. And he was standing out here to scared to go in. And was probably going to have a heart attack in a moment by the way it felt.  


Foggy took a deep breath, opened the door and walked in. Matt was sitting at his desk, ear piece dangling from his ear, grinning at whatever Karen just said. She stood next to him, hand on his shoulder.  
It looked like such a perfect moment. They kind of thing that would be immortalised in one of those old-fashioned paintings. _A study in virtue and cordiality_ by Vermeer. Something like that.  


Of course it wasn’t a painting. The moment didn’t last. Karen looked up and gasped in surprise. Matt frowned at the interruption, tilted his head.  


“Hi” Foggy said uselessly.  


Before he knew what was happening Karen had rushed forward and had him in an impressive bear hug. Foggy let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. This was good. And familiar. He definitely needed this.  


Karen let go way too soon. “We heard you had amnesia. What the hell! Are you OK?”  
She was still holding on to his arm. Foggy tried to formulate a reply, any reply, to this, but was distracted by movement behind Karen. Matt was packing his briefcase.  


Foggy had always been able to read Matt’s expression – he didn’t have much of a poker face after all. He didn’t know how to interpret it now.  
In any case Matt was definitely upset – jaw clenched, breathing heavily. “I have to be in court.” His voice cracked half-way through the sentence.  


“Please, Matt…”  


But he headed to the door. Karen stepped out of the way. Foggy didn’t.  
Matt bumped into him, just a shoulder check. Foggy stumbled back but Matt didn’t even pause. He was out the door in a moment. Foggy stared after him. That had never happened before.  


“Does he really have to be in court?”  


Karen looked at him apologetically. “In a couple of hours.”  


“Shit” That had gone about as badly as it could have.  


“What did you expect.” Karen was starting to look less sympathetic.  


“I don’t know.” Not to be ignored. Not to be literally pushed out of the way. “I don’t even know what happened.” He was pleading.  


“So you thought you’d just waltz back in here and Matt would suck it up and make you feel better about what going on so you can just disappear again.” Definitely not sympathetic.  


Foggy drooped. “You make me sound like a real asshole when you put it like that.”  


“Sorry." She didn't sound it. "Maybe I shouldn’t be mad at you. After all Matt insists that it’s all his fault. But _you_ left and Matt’s been…” she paused, took a breath, corrected “We’ve missed you.”  


“That’s the thing. I just don’t understand. You say I left but I can’t imagine anything that would make me leave here. What would make me leave to two of you.” His breath hitched. “I just want to know what happened so I can fix it and everything can go back to normal. I miss you guys.” That was an understatement. He’d been dropped into a stranger’s life and he ached to go home.  


Karen still managed to look cynical. “Will you still want that once you remember the last couple of months?”  


Foggy was getting desperate. And irritated, possibly at the wrong person. “How am I even supposed to answer that? Just tell me what happened and I’ll fix it.”  


Karen grimaced. “I don’t know.”  


“How can you not know?”  


“Matt refused to talk about it. He gets that look whenever I bring it up.”  


“The ‘I’m stubborn and I can outlast you’ look?” Foggy rolled his eyes. “I know it well.”  


Karen looked at him and appeared to reach a decision. “Do you remember Helena?”  


“Yeah” Foggy fidgeted. “Marci said she died.”  


“Yeah," Karen tucked her hair behind her ear, "well that evening the three of us went to Josie’s. We were pretty miserable. Matt was furious. But it was still the three of us.”  


She took a deep breath and continued more quickly. “The next day you two didn’t come in to the office. At first I thought you were just late – hung-over or something - but after a while I got worried. I tried Matt but he didn’t answer his phone. I called you and you said you were at Matt’s place, that he’s been hit by a car.”  


“Jesus!”  


“That’s pretty much what I said. I was going to come over but you snapped at me and told me to stay in the office.”  


“What?”  


“Next day when I got to work your office had been cleaned out. The Nelson & Murdock sign was in the trash.”  


“What!”  


“So I went to see Matt. He looked pretty miserable and beat-up. And I mean that literally.” Karen looked at him. “Not that I’m an expert, but that didn’t look like the result of a car accident to me.”  


“So we were lying?” This made less and less sense.  


“Apparently” she carried on “Matt wanted to know whether I’d talked to you, but had no further explanation to give. I found you at Josie’s couple of days later – you wanted to know if Matt had said anything. Said you weren’t coming back. That’s it.”  


“That’s it?” He couldn’t believe it.  


“That’s it. You just didn’t come back. Matt said it was all his fault and has been pretty uniformly miserable since then.”  


“Matt thinks everything is his fault. “ he said under his breath. Then, to Karen “This doesn’t really explain anything, though”  


“Tell me about it.” He and Karen stared at each other. The phone started to ring. The both ignored it. Foggy broke first. “You should probably get that.”  


Karen gave him half a crooked smile. “You should probably go home and get some rest. You still look like crap." A real smile now. "I really glad you’re OK.” 

She turned back toward her desk and Foggy turn back to the door. He didn’t know what else to do.


	4. A little more conversation

Distraction was in order.

When Foggy got home he ordered as much pizza as he could possibly stomach and lined up a movie that Netflix reliably informed him he’d seen before but that he’d never heard of. Drinking alone was probably a bad idea and in any case he wasn’t supposed to drink with the meds he was still taking. Hot chocolate it was, then. There was a knock at the door. Pizza. That was quick.

Or not. Matt was at the door, looking every bit as uncomfortable as he suddenly felt.

“Hi” Foggy stood there miserably.

“Hey” Matt replied.

Silence fell as awkwardly as possible.

Matt shuffled his feet. “So Karen told me to suck it up and come talk to you.”

“I rather doubt that.”

“She might have phrased in differently.” Foggy couldn’t help smiling at that.

Matt was here. Maybe he could fix things after all. “Uhm.. .so.. come in?” Fix the awkwardness, say something. 

Matt hesitated but stepped inside. Score one for Foggy.

Matt kept his head down and looked every bit as uncomfortable inside as he had at the door. “Karen just pointed out to me that there’s little point in being angry at you for something you don’t even remember doing.”

Foggy took a breath. “Leaving, you mean.”

“Yeah” Matt managed to look small and incredibly wound up.

Foggy looked at him for a while and reached for Matt’s arm. “That’s just it. If you tell me what happened we can talk about it and…” but Matt pulled away and retreated to the living room. 

“Please, Foggy, I…I don’t want to have this conversation again. It was unpleasant enough the first time, and there’s no reason why it would end differently now. The situation is what it is.”

Resignation was an unusual look on Matt. He didn’t like it at all. “I don’t even know what the situation is.”

Mat seemed to hesitate. He recognised the frown. “The doctors said you’d probably start remembering things soon. You’ll be fine.” 

“And what if I don’t?”

“If you don’t remember after a while I’ll tell you, I promise.” More resignation.

That was probably as much as he was going to get. There was something else though… “Did Marci tell you about the medical stuff?”

That was a guilty look. “I, uhm,…have a friend at the hospital, a nurse. She kept us updated.”

Ah, so the guilty look was for a major HIPAA patient-doctor confidentiality ethics violation. Almost touchingly stalkery, really. He should maybe address that later. First lighten the mood.

“A nurse, really? She hot?” 

This seemed to have the opposite effect. Why would that make him look guilty?

“ _You_ said she was.” 

Right. So the conversation had ground to a halt. Foggy cast around for something to make Matt look less tense. No luck. Maybe resignation was the way to go after all. “So I guess it turns out we weren’t as close as I thought we were.” Deep breath “Or at least that I’m a shitty friend, if some argument is just going to make me leave.”

“It’s not like that, Foggy. This really isn’t on you.”

“And yet here we are. Something happened and everything’s fucked up.” Foggy flopped onto the couch, feeling like a two-year-old having a tantrum. “Amnesia sucks.”

Matt reached out as if to touch his shoulder, but pulled back. Instead he cautiously sat down next to Foggy. “If it helps, you probably won’t feel any better about it once you do remember.”

“That’s great, thanks Matt.” Definitely a sulking child. “I know this is stupid, but to me just three days ago everything was fine. Nelson and Murdock forever.” Matt flinched at that. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

They both sighed. Matt fidgeted with the edge of his sleeve. “What do you need, Foggy?”

How could he answer that? He needed things to be back the way they were. No secrets and awkwardness and uncomfortable silence. That didn’t seem like a viable answer though. 

“Want to watch a movie? There’s pizza on the way.”

~

They sat for a while, cautiously, on opposite ends of the couch. Foggy narrated the action on the screen by force of habit. After a while Matt seemed to gradually unclench. If he was going to retry this conversation now would be the time.

Foggy took a deep breath. “Matt?” 

“Mm?” Matt tilted his head and raised eyebrows in his direction. It was such a familiar gesture that it made his heart clench.

“I know you said you don’t want to go over it again, but can I ask you just one thing?”

Everything about Matt´s reaction screamed no. He sighed. “OK?”

“So, we argued about something, and Karen says that you were all beat up?”

“Yes?”

“Did _I_ hit you?” Foggy flinched at the question, but he had to know this at least. He couldn´t imagine that this was what happened, but then again, he couldn´t imaging leaving either.

“What?!” Matt gaped at him. “No, nothing like that.” He seemed to be hesitating about adding anything else. And then: “You did threaten to kick my ass though.” He added with half a rueful grin.

That was the closest Matt had come to smiling since he’d seen him. Subject matter was pretty unfortunate though. “Great” he said to himself. Then to Matt: “I’m sure I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m pretty sure you did.” An actual smile this time. Only Matt could keep up such a kicked puppy look while smiling.

Foggy couldn’t think of anything to say that would salvage this train wreck of a conversation. They sat in silence for a while. At least it didn’t feel as tense as before. In fact it would be quite companionable if it weren’t for that enormous gulf if distance between them. Matt might not be a particularly touchy-feely guy but they had always been relaxed enough around each other that a casual touch was no big deal. It certainly felt like a big deal now. Foggy considered stretching out and incidentally nudging Matt in the knee, or just reaching out to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention. No big deal, right? 

He could almost hear his mother’s voice: “Cut that out. Accidentally on-purpose plausible deniability touching is creepy.” Foggy sighed and let Matt watch the movie unmolested.

~

Once the movie was over Matt stood up to leave. Foggy considered making some kind of excuse to get him to stay, but there didn’t seem to be any point. Foggy handed him his cane instead.

As he was leaving Matt turned, hesitated. “Once you start to remember, will you stay in contact with Karen? She misses you and none of this is her fault.”

He couldn’t help but notice the implicit assumption that _they_ certainly weren’t going to be keeping in contact. Foggy swallowed the knot in his throat. “Of course. See you around, Matt.”

This got him a real smile for just a fraction of a second. For a moment he thought Matt might a corny blind joke and things would just somehow be OK again. But instead… “Goodbye, Foggy” he said, and walked out the door.


	5. Home

It was raining gently. Matt could hear and feel the patter of individual raindrops on his suit – they mingled with the blood and ran in rivulets down his body, trickled down his arms and dripped from his fingertips onto the roof. The roof where Foggy had been recently. He could still just make out the scent of his shampoo but even that would soon be washed away.  
  
  
The rain muffled the sounds of the city coming from far away – he needed to focus even harder to work under these conditions, to find the source of a scream that makes his fists ache with anticipation – but it brought everything nearby into sharp contrast, even as it washed scent away. So now he could just barely tell that Foggy came up here, waited on the roof for a while, and then went down the stairs into his apartment.  
  
  
He hadn’t noticed it at first. When Matt had gotten here he wanted nothing more than to peel off the clammy suit, soak his bruises under a hot shower and finally get some sleep, but he froze - hand on the door – to the sound of Foggy pacing in his apartment below. Foggy continued to pace for a while, before getting a beer from the fridge and settling on the couch with a deep sigh. Matt was still frozen on the roof – the drizzle was gradually turning into heavy rain and his suit was soaked through. By now the rain had washed most of the blood from his face but his bruised ribs were starting to ache in earnest. Soft, warm sheets were just a couple of steps away. He didn’t move. Why was Foggy in his apartment? The only time he’d ever come in through the roof access before was the night he’s found him bleeding out in the mask.  
  
  
He heard a thud as Foggy put down the beer, the creak of the couch as he stood up and started pacing again. His heartbeat was rapid, breathing shallow – stressed or nervous about something. Matt could relate. He wondered whether Foggy had heard him landing on the roof. He hadn’t been particularly careful to be quiet, there wasn’t supposed to be anyone here and he was too tired to be graceful. If Foggy had heard him land it meant he knew he was now just standing there, not quite daring to enter his own apartment. Embarrassing. Matt squared his shoulders and opened the door, trying to look imposing as he came down the stairs. Foggy’s heartbeat jumped.  
  
  
“So it looked kinda stupid in the papers but the new suit is pretty scary up close.”  
  
  
So he remembers. Was the sudden heat in his chest relief or disappointment? Matt pulled off the helmet and ran his hand through his hair, ribs protesting as he lifted his arm. “Why are you here, Foggy?”  
  
  
He shrugged, suit rustling. “I wanted to talk to you.” There was a pause. A breath. “Sit down.”  
  
  
Matt crossed his arms. “I’m fine here.” He was aware he was being ridiculous.  
  
  
Foggy huffed, his hair brushed against his collar. “I just rolled my eyes. Could you tell?”  
  
  
“…No” Matt felt absurdly defensive and wrong-footed.  
  
  
Foggy sat back down on the couch. Matt felt like he was being looked over.  
“So here’s the thing.” Foggy’s heart was racing, but his voice was calm and level – just the faintest hint of a quaver. “When I found out about.. about how much you’d been hiding from me, how little I actually knew about you while you knew everything about me - still do, because no-one can actually hide anything from you, there is no _privacy_ from you – it just felt like…”  
  
  
Matt was aware that his breathing was getting unsteady. Each breath hurt, or maybe that was just the ribs complaining.  
  
  
“..It felt like I was always your friend, and you were never mine.”  
  
  
The tightness in his chest increased. “That’s not…” His voice was too high.  
  
  
“You’re going to let me finish, Matt.” Foggy said firmly.  
  
  
Matt found himself wishing that he’s sat down when Foggy told him to, instead of standing here getting scolded like a teenager.  
  
  
Foggy took a shaky breath and continued. “For as long as I’ve known you I’ve been leading you and describing the world and narrating every gesture. And I felt like such a fool since apparently none of that was ever necessary.”  
  
  
Matt wanted to tell him that it was more complicated than that, that he couldn’t be that on all the time, that he needed Foggy to colour the world, that he couldn’t always make out gestures, or facial expressions at all. But he wasn’t going to plead. He wanted to cross his arms defensively, but they were already crossed, leaving him nowhere to go. He clenched his jaw. “You broke into my apartment just to tell me off?”  
  
  
“I’m not telling you off, Matt. I’m just telling you what happened, I’m just… explaining.” Foggy got up off the couch and walked over. Brushed off his clothes self-consciously. “It turned out I don’t know you at all, since what you do, how you behave, is something I’d never have thought you were capable of.” He took a deep breath. “So point is when I found all of this out I was hurt and I was angry and I reacted badly. Should have talked to you properly instead of storming off. And I’m sorry.”  
  
  
Matt dropped his arms. He could hear Foggy’s heart beating frantically. “You…what?”  
  
  
Foggy swallowed, went to stand squarely in front of him. “I’m sorry. Will you have me back?”  
  
  
“You… I… what?” Matt swayed slightly on the spot. He could hear the flutter of eyelashes as Foggy blinked rapidly, his breathing wet.  
  
  
“I was kinda hoping for _some_ kind of reaction.” Then he repeated more firmly. “Can I come back to work at Nelson  & Murdock, or whatever it’s called now?”  
  
  
That was at least something he knew how to respond to. “I think Karen kept the sign.” He heard Foggy inhale sharply. “I mean…yes?” He felt slightly off balance. What just happened?  
  
  
There was a moment of comparative silence. Foggy hiccoughed and started laughing in relief. “Oh, thank God. I’ve already quit at Martin Zizek.”  
  
  
He’s still irrationally befuddled. “What would you have done if I said no?” As though that could have happened.  
  
  
“I dunno. Guess I would have begged and grovelled and stalked you until you changed your mind.”  
  
  
“Or you could just plead your case with Karen. It’s not like I was going to say no to her.” Foggy snorted but suddenly sobered. “There are terms, though. We are going to have a serious conversation. On a whole range of topics.”  
  
  
“Yes” He couldn’t stop himself from nodding.  
  
  
“And no more secrets, no more lies, no more keeping things to yourself.”  
  
  
Matt swallows. He’d have to work at this. “Yes”  
  
  
“And you have to tell Karen. Everything.”  
  
  
“I know, yes.” He should have a long time ago.  
  
  
Foggy stops, almost panting. “Um, well that’s it.”  
  
  
He’s not quite sure of what his face is doing. Tries for a joke. “What, no demands for free bagels?”  
  
  
Foggy breathes in to reply and Matt can already hear the laughter in his voice, and he reaches forward and pulls him into a hug.  
  
  
Foggy yelps. “You’re soaking wet!” Matt starts to laugh, barely even wincing when Foggy shoves him in retaliation. “And injured! You idiot!” Foggy starts to poke at his side. “Are you bleeding?”  
  
  
Matt swats his hands away. “A couple of bruised ribs. I’m fine.” He’s still grinning. Unlikely to stop anytime soon.  
  
  
“Bruised ribs is ‘fine’.?!” Foggy huffed and threw up his hands.  
  
  
Matt shrugged easily. “Comparatively fine, considering.” He grins.  
  
  
“Stop grinning at me, you idiot. Go take a shower and put on some dry clothes. I’m making soup.”  
  
  
“I don’t need soup.”  
  
  
“You’re having soup.” Foggy said dangerously. “And you’re still grinning.”  
  
  
Matt tries unsuccessfully to school his expression. He can hear Foggy swallow heavily and tenses as Foggy steps in and pulls him into a very cautious, gentle hug. “Um, I’m not… not going to break, you know.”  
  
  
“Shut up.” Foggy says, not letting go. Matt can feel his heartbeat against his chest and relaxes into it.  
  
  
“I really am fine.” His breath still isn’t quite steady. “Everything’s fine.”  
  
  
Foggy sniffs. “It really is. Who’d have thought?”


End file.
